Relic [Azraeth]

[Valdimar (DELETED 10176)]

Azraeth William Carpenter, the other man offered. Valdimar stored the name away, committing it to memory, even if it looked as if he were not paying any attention. Valdimar was distracted. Standing, now, he was more preoccupied with how his own body felt than by the chaos that surrounded them. The air felt close and uncomfortable, filled with the stench of blood, but Valdimar could both feel the gravity that rooted his feet to the ground as well as the swell of new power that dictated his separation from it. Every muscle was pronounced, all those hours he’d spent running up mountainsides and abusing the equipment in the gym provided him now with an impressive physique. It almost felt like, if he bent his knees and pushed off the ground, he’d be able to fly.

Instead, his tongue ran over the bluntness of perfectly aligned teeth until it reached the sharp canines at the front. When he lifted his hand he was distracted by how his muscles responded, every movement of every finger pronounced. Eventually his thumb pressed to the tip of one sharp tooth – sharp as a scalpel, it was, easily parting flesh. Which then announced one more thing to be so thoroughly distracted by. Blood. It was rich and red, vibrant and voluptuous against his flesh. Had he ever seen anything so red?! It only added credence to all the meanings applied to the colour; lust, violence, anger. It throbbed with such sentiments. The thumb was once more passed over Valdimar’s lips as he did what every human does when they cut their hands—he sucked the blood away.

Which only caused him to cringe. If every sense was heightened so too were his tastebuds. The blood he tasted—his own blood—was wrong. It was cold and dead and though vibrant, though it no doubt harboured power, it was lacking life. The reaction he gave was immediate, his body telling him one very important thing. It caused his veins to thrum and the itch to intensify at the back of his throat. This was not the blood he wanted.

Azraeth’s words were slowly sinking in. Dragomir. Dragon. It was exotic; the first thing he thought of was a Chinese festival he’d attended when visiting the country, the dragon as it danced down the street with its numerous puppeteers dancing beneath it. But Azraeth William Carpenter was not Chinese. Instead, the way he spoke, the formality—the Dragon he spoke of was better aligned with that of Arthurian legend. It was gratifying to know that he was part of some greater family, that he might be welcomed into their fold. But he again involuntarily stiffened as Azraeth mentioned the relic, as if his only intention in saving Valdimar was to secure the relic for himself.

It took a few seconds to understand that the man was joking.

”How do you know the strength I have is what the world needs? I could be a bad person,” Valdimar asked, wary, distracted. Was it something that Azraeth could do, much like he’d infused Valdimar with enough blood to sufficiently boost his healing process. Could he see the future? Could he tell who Valdimar was, as a person, just by looking at him? Regardless, he nodded. Blood. His mind rejected the idea, repulsed by it. But his body craved it, and the new instinct within Valdimar outweighed the old.

And there was also a quiet voice begging for a long, hot bath and some fresh clothes, too.

”Blood. How do you—we—how do we get it? And… who was the other man?” he asked, glancing toward the door they would soon exit through—the one that the other man had formerly disappeared through. Or had Valdimar imagined him?

[Azraeth]

The question was a reasonable one. After all, any claim required some sort of evidence or justification, especially ones about how extraordinary a person was. How did Az answer that? Did he say that Harper Rock was a meat grinder? That he had seen dozens, maybe hundreds of people turned over the years. That he’d seen them rise and fall like the crashing of waves against the craggy face of a cliffside? It was mostly intuitive, but not purely. He could see certain traits, and from those traits, he could extrapolate what kind of person Valdimar might be, what he could do in a particular situation. It was, he supposed, akin to seeing the outline of a person through a fog. He couldn’t say for sure exactly who they were, but he could tell from the silhouette what their stature was. Valdimar had quite the stature, both literally and figuratively.

So no, Az’s previous fears, the ones he’d had when he was first offering his blood to the other man were somewhat assuaged. Valdimar wouldn’t be the sort of creature who faded into nothingness. He wouldn’t let the darkness fully consume him until there was nothing left.

It still left the question unanswered.

And then there was the metaphysical. Azraeth was, as much as a vampire could be, tied to magic. There were few who had his grasp on it, his connection to the Shadow Realm, his gift for seeing omens in every day things. His ability to guess future events. And this too was far too difficult to explain. The powers that came with vampirism were meant to be learned over time, not dumped out all at once onto someone’s lap, like a person vomitting the contents of their stomach (or brain, in this case), onto a friend after a particularly hard party.

And still the question went unanswered.

”You are nothing less than what I see in you. And you can’t convince me you believe otherwise.” He decided upon. It was safe, but it was true, and that made it the most earnest answer he could give without going into great depth.

It was time to get some blood though. Az had run through a mountain’s worth of his anima stores during battle and healing his childe. He’d suffered blood loss and injury, and there was hunger gnawing at his core. Time had tempered his reaction to that starving, suffocating, sinking, sick feeling - but it was always going to be there until it was sated. He slipped through the exit, assuming that Valdimar would be at his back. Of course, if something held the Icelander up, Az was more than happy to double back suitably.

”There are numerous ways to get blood. Vampires are ‘out’ now. You’ve probably heard all about us. We’re practically a ******* tourist attraction. There are a number of pretty girls and handsome men who would love to volunteer to put their necks near your fangs. There are blood packs as well.” He continued as he made his way across the street from the harbor area. The smell of the river was there, stronger than ever. Thankfully, this part of town wasn’t terribly populated, which meant their less than decorous appearance, marred by blood and violence, would hopefully go unnoticed. ”We’re going with the latter for now, since we’re generally unequipped to deal with a more polite exchange. Which means we need to track down a black market shop. You can also hunt, though that’s dangerous these days. There are a lot of hunters who want to kill our kind. I’d suggest saving that for another time.”

Another thing to be thankful for was that there was one such shop nearby. Of course, it wasn’t advertised after the normal fashion. There were no bright lights. No signs. A person just had to know what to look for. The call sign of the particular vendor he was seeking out was a tarot card tucked in a door frame. He kept his eyes peeled as he slipped down the street. His jacket was gone and destroyed, so one hand laid aimlessly at his side while the other moved through the air at the opposite side. Commanding the darkness was an art more than a power, a careful gathering of shadows to obscure what was going on, to ensure they weren’t discovered by anyone Az didn’t want them to be discovered by.

”Look for the Hierophant.” He said absently. ”And that man was Flynn. He’s my lover. More than that, really. He’s a Paladin. You’ll certainly run into more of those over time. They have tattoos and usually hate vampires. In fact, they’re wired for it. He overcame that, in part, because he loves me. He works with and amongst vampires, in part, because he loves me. He is my partner in every sense of the word. You’ll be seeing a lot of him over the coming years.” He mentioned, and that was when he caught sight of what he was looking for. His fingers, the ones which had been moving, fell limp against his side as he made his way across the street once more to what looked like a run down townhouse.

He swung the front door open and motioned for Valdimar to enter.

[Valdimar (DELETED 10176)]

The answer Valdimar received was vague, and, in his estimation, not much of an answer. Nothing less than what I see in you was like something a seer might say, some kind of acclaimed mystic that toured the world and received accolades from those who believed in that kind of thing. Valdimar was still on the fence; he loved history, he loved relics from history, and he believed that other people believed that they had some magical and mystical purpose. Some more than others, it would seem, given his kidnap and subsequent torture.

Obediently, Valdimar followed Azraeth out of the warehouse. They left the bodies and destruction behind, the scent of blood both foreign and familiar. Valdimar didn’t realise how strong that scent was until it was gone, replaced by the fetid saltiness of the river, the mud as it slapped against the banks, the putridity where human mess had gathered and curdled. It was almost as if he could identify the specific rot of a McDonald’s burger thrown over the side of a bridge, and the kind belonged to a fish gutted and left under a dock where someone may have fished during the day.

And while trying to control and understand the new strength of his ordinary senses, Valdimar did his best to listen to the lessons given to him by the man he would now consider ‘sire’. The world had been turned topsy-turvey in the space of one night, and Valdimar was struggling to comprehend the nuances of blood. Hunting, the word spoken with reverence and then dismissed as part of tonight’s endeavours, piqued Valdimar’s curiosity. That, he guessed, meant stalking someone, following them until the opportune moment to strike; taking their blood without asking for it. A predator claiming that which he needed to survive.

He was told to look for the Heirophant and Valdimar had no idea what that was, but asking seemed irrelevant given the number of other questions he had. As steeped in mystical objects as Valdimar was, he didn’t follow them, nor use them. Tarot wasn’t one of his specialties, and the reference was lost on him.

When they stepped into the shop that they had been looking for, Valdimar’s thoughts had moved on. Flynn. A lover. Years. To be so certain that they would be together in years to come, to be so certain that they would all still be there, here, living around each other. Valdimar hadn’t had the time to think about his future or the fact that he probably shouldn’t go home immediately. ”You presume that I will be staying here. It is not my home…” Valdimar said, slowly. He wasn’t trying to be disrespectful, he was just stating the first thing that popped into his head. ”I had heard about this city. Does it mean that there are not vampires elsewhere? Why would they not travel?” he asked. They, because it was too soon, yet, to be in the habit of we.

His voice was hushed within the confines of the shop, his curious eyes wide and surveying the wares within even while he spoke. But even though his voice was quiet it sounded loud, like a boombox. Everything sounded loud, right down to the scuff of his feet on the floor and the buzzing of a bug stuck in the light fixture overhead. It was to that buzzing his eyes now travelled, fixated upon it, upon the movement of the wings as the bug stupidly butted against the glass, high on the light that it had been so blindly drawn toward.

[Azraeth]

The interior of the shop was exactly as one might have imagined from a townhouse. The entrance itself was a hallway which led into a massive room which normally would have been used as a living or entertainment space. There was the landing for a staircase leading up to the second floor, but it was roped off, and there was an owner in a seat who seemed to be unarmed. It was a miracle nobody had ever made an effort to rob one of the black market shops in the past. Or at least. Az had never heard of it. Though after thinking about it, he doubted anyone would have. He imagined theft was the sort of thing handled behind closed doors in relative silence, with no evidence left behind to indicate a crime had ever been committed. Or perhaps there was just honor amongst the undead.

There were a number of crates scattered around with their lids pulled off, chock full of what seemed to be everything from firearms to ammunition, to improvised gadgets. “You may want to select a firearm and a knife. You don’t have to worry too much about quality. These places have some very good starter pieces, but you will very quickly find that there’s better. It’s just best not to be out in Harper Rock unarmed...for obvious reasons.” He explained, though he didn’t give the wooden boxes filled with weapons much in the way of attention. Valdimar could select the ones he liked and Azraeth was happy to pay for it. Everything in the city of monsters cost something.

Instead, the vampire slipped over to the gentleman who ‘owned’ the establishment. There was a cooler beside him along with a strongbox. The vampire pulled his wallet, slipping his fingers across the cash, before withdrawing it and handing it over. ”A couple of blood packs if you would be so kind, and the rest of this should cover whatever colossus over there nabs. Pleasure doing business with ya.” He said before exchanging the wad of cash he’d pulled for the blood itself. Of course to preserve it, the red fluid was cool inside of its plastic packaging, which took away from the pleasantness of the flavor in Az’s experience. He ended up tossing both bags over to Valdimar. ”Vampires do not travel outside of Harper Rock for practical reasons. It’s a bit of a long story, but basically, vampires have not always existed. There was a period of our history when our kind were completely wiped out by hunters - this time is commonly called the holocaust. However, a few years ago, around 2011, there was a necromancer who was...doing things. I’m not really sure what. Something happened and the Shadow Realm, where we go when we die, ripped open right where the Quarantine Zone is. As long as a vampire dies in the city or in the area close around it, we can find our way out through that rift. Anywhere else in the world - we die and we stay dead.” He explained even as he moved to prop his hip against a closed crate, his arms folding over his chest as he considered.

”Not that travel is not an option if that’s what you want.” He elaborated. The way he spoke openly in front of the ‘owner’ indicated that, at the very least, he was safe to have that variety of conversation in front of. It occured to Az that the two of them probably should have been more concerned about the pressing issue of the relic and the men who had tried to steal it. Perhaps there were others like them who were out there, waiting to pick up the potentially magical artefact. Of course, that also seemed like a matter for Future Az to deal with. The first few hours shared between sire and childer were some of the most important, and he didn’t want those clouded by anything else.

[Valdimar (DELETED 10176)]

The longer he stared, the more it started to feel as if he were right alongside that bug, butting up against the glass. The light had cause the black of his eyes to contract into the tiniest dots. He, too, was the bug, drawn toward the miracle of electricity. Beyond the brightness he could see the twin pegs and the wire stretched between them, now flaring with this natural-but-manmade thing. It hummed, contained as it was but connected to a greater whole. The bug was oblivious to what it was or how the light got there; it mimicked the outside, the sunlight. Warmth. This was what the bug craved. The bug which turned out to be a moth, the buzz now less of a buzz but more of a soft thwackthwack, the dust falling from its fragile wings, its body made up of so many miniscule hairs, its large, bulbous eyes and its feather-like antennae mesmerising to the new killer.

The shopkeeper must have thought he was high.

And for all intents and purposes, he was. Valdimar was high on rebirth, discovering all his senses anew, as if all this time living on this earth he hadn’t used them at all. He was aware of Azraeth speaking in the background. Any disconcertment at the assumption he’d stay longer than his holiday had been planned for had dispersed. Concern for the future was swept away by the wonderment of a working lightbulb and a dumb bug.

The slosh of blood in a bag accompanied by the word, blood, had Valdimar forcing his attention from one thing to another. He had to blink away the dancing spots of light but managed, still, to catch the bags that were tossed in his direction. They were cool to the touch, the plastic thick. Just the sight of the dark red and yet vibrant liquid within the bags was enough to remind the fledgling of his thirst; his gums ached where new canines had split through and his throat burned, dry and desperate. His ears perked, listening to the calming cadence of his sire’s voice even as he tried to figure out the least messy way to tear open the bag in his hand and drain it dry.

”Not unlike being human, then,” Valdimar offered. Traveling as a human was just as dangerous as traveling as something else, wasn’t it? There was still risk of car crashes or airplane faults, of disease or mass shooters or falling from a cliff with only a weak carabiner holding you in place. There were snakes and sharks and wild bears. There were natural disasters. All could happen with the threat of permanent death. Though, he had to accede that if there was a place where a human could die and come back to life, it’d probably be overrun.

There were three notches at the top of the blood bag, and Valdimar realised he didn’t have to rip anything at all. He could twist the notches like caps, which he did, and then brought said notch to his lips like it was a straw. The first mouthful was tentative and even a little shy, his gaze flickering between the shop keeper (who’d probably seen this so many times before) and his sire. The sip was small, the cruor touching his tongue and sliding down this throat. He’d expected to gag, to want to throw it up, to be disgusted by the taste. But his tastebuds had changed. The blood didn’t taste like blood, copper and savoury. Still savoury, it tasted of nutrients and of life. His body instinctively knew what it needed, and after that the pack was drained in numerous greedy gulps. Air hissed from his nostrils as his eyes fell shut.

The second bag was consumed in a similar fashion, after which he held on to their empty corpses, unsure what to do with the rubbish. He felt better. Fuller. Still, the shopkeeper was looking at him expectantly.

Unfortunately, so absorbed by the light and the bug, Valdimar had completely missed what Azraeth had said about weapons, nor had he paid much attention to much of the sentence after blood had been mentioned.

[Azraeth]

Az noticed, as his attention moved back to his newly turned progeny, that the man was absorbed in some sort of moment, and this brought a smile to the vampire’s lips. There had been a time when Azraeth had been the same way, first experiencing the new sensations which came along with being one of the undead - and there were a myriad of them. A person could encounter every stimulus the world had to offer, and once changed, would need to relive them all to find their pool of knowledge increased by a measure of double. It reminded Azraeth of Plato’s allegory of the cave. If a person were to be chained, facing a wall upon which shadows played - would shadows not be the whole of his world? The allegory made numerous observations, but one of those which stuck out most to the Mystic was that perception and the way one interfaced with the world were powerful in shaping one’s definition of reality. What use was color to a man who was blind?

The smile he wore was there because he had made Valdimar. Oh. He had not contributed to his birth and had not shaped him from clay - he had made him in the sense that the new vampire was a different person to who he had been, and it was Azraeth who had led him down that path. There were some who viewed vampirism as a curse. The mystic saw it as a blessing, because all of the great things in his life had come after death. He had learned to love himself and others, and had grown through his own journey. Being able to revisit those first few moments after transition was invigorating, and it filled the vampire with this desire to know Valdimar, to watch him go through those same trials. He would, of course, be there if that was the desire, but just watching that development as it took place over time was a pleasing prospect.

There was nothing quite like watching someone become themselves. There was a beauty to it.

”You will find that being undead mirrors closely with your experience of being human. It may be better to think of us not as separate things but as two sides of the same coin. One for day, and one for night. We largely all feel the same things, go through the same desire for community, have the same anxieties and fears. Vampires just need blood to survive, and are like a more predatory version of humanity. We are the darkness to their light. There is more in common there than there is different.” He confirmed. And then added in his mind We are the unnatural to their natural. He didn’t say that, of course, because there was already a sea of information his childe had to digest, and not all of it had come from the Mystic.

There were some who went mad from the abundance of new stimulation. Eventually Valdimar would find a way to hone in on the important details and carefully filter out anything external which he didn’t need.

He noticed that Valdimar had not selected any weapons - which was alright. He had a stockpile in a few different places which also sufficed. Actually, it was entirely possible that the vampire had too many weapons. He was just used to **** hitting the fan on repeat, and had learned over time that it was better to be overprepared than under. He could just select some to hand over later, without disrupting that first feeding. It was not messy, though it was eager, which hinted at good things to the Mystic. Perhaps the Icelander would not find himself driven to frenzy at the taste of blood. There had once been a youngling sired by Nikolae with that affliction, and Az had been forced essentially to tackle him out of a public event for fear of causing a commotion. Since then, Azraeth had always been keen to watch new Dragons feasting. It didn’t seem - whatever it had been - was shared by all of them. Not that anyone would have accused the Dragomir of being particularly sane to begin with.

”If ever you find yourself unable to find someone you can drink from, these shops are always a good option, and safe. The last thing you want is to be the target of hunters. Those men from before are just one of the dangers which come with being a vampire - though I suppose again - as you were human when they attacked you, you can see parallels there too.” He then pointed towards a rubbish bin which was tucked beside a crate - lined in a yellow and red biohazard bag, before he began towards the door.

[Valdimar (DELETED 10176)]

A more predatory version of humanity.

Valdimar wanted to disagree, but he couldn’t. He hadn’t been a vampire long enough to compare, but humanity wasn’t exactly non-predatory. They were just clumsier about it than vampires, perhaps, but there was death everywhere. There was war and genocide, murder and rape. Humans were as bloodthirsty as they had always been. Valdimar had never been a soldier nor condoned genocide, and never murdered nor raped anyone. But here he was being told that he was a vampire now, and that as a vampire he was more predatory than his human counterpart. He was a coin that had been flipped, and what would that mean, as time passed? Would he become a predator, a murderer?

But, he was also told they had more in common than they were different, and so in those few seconds Valdimar concluded that he must not let go of his humanity. That whatever might be going on in his mind, however distracted he might be, however the thought of biting a human, another living person and drinking their blood sent a thrill down his spine, he wouldn’t let go of that which made him Valdimar Svensson, son of Sven, a father whom he would not disappoint despite loathing the shadow he cast over Valdimar.

And then his sire was gesturing to a biohazard bin and wandering toward the door. Valdimar looked at the empty bags in his hands and dropped them into the bin, following after his sire like there was a string that was tied to his belt, the other end tied to Azraeth’s.

The meeting had happened, though not the way they had planned it. Azraeth mentioned the people who’d attacked Valdimar and it brought him full circle. The reason he was in that place to begin with. Maybe it was fated. Maybe this was where he was always supposed to end up. He shoved his hands into his pockets, sucking the last of the blood from his teeth. He tried to focus only on his sire—he tried not to feel the breeze in his hair nor think about how he might capture it, or swat it away. He tried not to think about the crunch beneath his foot or what it might have been—glass, or dirt? Where had it come from? If he picked it up, could he grind it between his fingers to discover its origin? He let it be.

”The relic,” he said. ”Perhaps we should look at it. See if it is… worth the trouble,” he said. The words were calmer than the storm at his core. If the relic was nothing, if there were no magical properties to it whatsoever, then Valdimar would have been tortured and killed for no reason. Whether or not he adapted to vampirism, whether or not he liked it, would have requested it, he’d have met Azraeth regardless. He might have had it regardless. The nightmares he presumed he might have due to the agony he’d endured, however…

”It is back at my hotel room,” he said. It would not have been so hard to find, if he was honest. His gut curled in on itself. What would they find when they got back to the hotel room?